Category Archives: Photography

Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreamy

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As a child, I remember laying on my back with my buddies and watching the clouds pass overhead. We would imagine different objects as the shapes of the clouds shifted and changed with the winds. I have not given up that pastime and offer a few of those clouds here. Do you see what I see? (Hover over the photo for my interpretation.)

Old Chimpanzee to the right
Bear on hind legs, looking over shoulder
Soaring eagle

Perhaps these serve as more of a Rorschach test and reveal something phobic or sinister about me, but I still love to daydream about what’s in the clouds.

For more examples of “dreamy”, click HERE.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Signs

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This was Homecoming Week in Creston, Iowa. The home football team traditionally runs through a banner, challenging them to “carry the day.” For this special game, a friend’s son carried the Panther flag and was the first to break through this hand-painted sign, leading his teammates onto the field for the evening’s competition.

Of course that sign was only a hopeful prediction. The sign that really matters is the scoreboard at the end of the game. Our boys prevailed in the end, even adding a field goal to finish with a 50-35 win.

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 Sherri Lucas Rowlands offered this week’s challenge. See more interpretations HERE.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime

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As Ben Huberman, WordPress Editor, suggests, “nighttime is when the real action starts.” That is certainly true of football homecoming week in rural Iowa. The annual tradition of TP-ing (aka: toilet papering, rolling, or wrapping) is in full swing as the Friday night game approaches. The young people, who hit my home tonight, were a little more creative. Not only was toilet paper wrapping my deck and hanging from the trees, but plastic forks, some impaled with marshmallows, lined the sidewalk.

Even my car was covered with post-its. We’ve been assured after many years of having our home TP-ed that only those who are liked get targeted. Such was the sentiment of a message painted on the window of our car – “We ♥ You, PC.”

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Some decry this as vandalism and wasteful. Because it is not malicious, I do not consider it as vandalism. I would agree that it is wasteful, although there have been a few times when abandoned toilet paper rolls not completely used on the yard found their way into my bathroom. Perhaps that is “TMI” (too much information).

All this nighttime activity took place under a beautiful half-moon.

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Click HERE for more examples of “nighttime.”

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Endurance

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We have two items in our home that convey the “endurance” of influence on my wife’s side of the family. The first is a watch that belonged to her great-grandmother for whom she was named. It was a gift to Myra McKay Harned on Christmas of 1903 and still endures 101 years later.

The second is a wooden cut out, representing a special family connection to Harned Hall on the Austin Peay University campus.IMGP9824

Myra’s great-grandfather, Perry L. Harned, was the first Commission of Education for the State of Tennessee, serving under Governor Austin Peay. William Hale, President of Tennessee A & I College, said of Harned:

Commissioner Harned is a Christian gentleman who towers above men and their petty schemes. He did much to make the building program and the program of the school in general possible.

President Hale was so impressed by Harned that he named his second son and third child Edward Harned in honor of the Commissioner. As Commissioner, Harned was instrumental in the establishment of what was then the Austin Peay Normal School in 1929.

Myra had always heard that a building on the campus was named for her great-grandfather. So, on a trip to Clarksville, Tennessee, we stopped, hoping to find it. After asking a maintenance employee for directions, we soon found ourselves getting much more attention than we expected. He informed the administration that we were there, and soon we were met by the university’s vice president and a history professor.

While visiting with the history professor, I mentioned my wife’s name and he replied, “Your name is Myra?” That is when we were told that Harned Hall was actually named after Harned’s wife, Myra McKay. Since buildings were generally named in memoriam and Harned was still living at the time of construction, it was named after his wife.

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The building had been slated for destruction, but because of its historical value and outcry from older alumni and faculty, it was saved. (HERE is a link to that story.) The wooden cut out was a gift to my wife, representing the 1932 building that continues to stand as an enduring mark of the educational influence of Perry Harned and wife, Myra McKay.

So, these two tangible items in our home give us the sense of an enduring family legacy.

Krista at WordPress issued this week’s challenge:

Show us what endurance means to you. Is it that high-school diploma, beads of sweat earned on a long run, a treasured family heirloom, or something else entirely?

Click HERE for more examples of “endurance.”

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Humanity

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Humanity is perhaps at its highest when it moves beyond selfish pursuits and comes together to care for the needs of others. Last spring, our church helped coordinate a community-wide “Mobile Hunger Fight” sponsored by Meals from the Heartland of Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Since 2008, the faith-based organization has packaged over 40 million meals for the hungry in Iowa and around the world. With over 150 volunteers from churches, schools, businesses and health-care facilities, the event packaged over 60,000 meals.

Creston High P.E. class making boxes.
Off-loading supplies
Training before packaging
Crest Baptist Church team (always a “ham” in the group).
R.E. Lewis Refrigeration Team
The routine: measuring, pouring, bagging, weighing, sealing, and boxing.

It was a joy to see our community come together and make our light shine beyond ourselves. Isaiah 58:10 “Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.”

Click HERE for more examples of humanity.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Adventure

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Getting a jump on the competition, we were airborne.

I would not consider myself a very adventuresome person. I’m not the most athletic person and not much of a thrill seeker. However, I have flown with a friend in his tandem ultralight, a risk my late father, a Navy fighter pilot (from Hellcat props and to Fury jets), admitted he would not take. And, last September, I took my first hot air balloon ride during our town’s annual balloon race.

Perhaps some of my favorite adventures are kayaking in the Gulf of Mexico in the pursuit of a close encounter with dolphins. Three years ago, my sister and I were treated to a sighting of a pod of about ten dolphins close to the shore. With kayaks on the beach, we quickly ventured into the waters to get a closer look. I took my Canon Power Shot, but after taking about a dozen pictures I noticed the display said, “No Card.” I was sick and too far from the beach house to go back and retrieve an SD card, so we just continued watching the dolphins breach, while staying a safe, non-intrusive distance from them.

My son-in-law riding the waves
My “kids” kayaking and paddleboarding
Selfie near Grayton Beach

There are few, non-essential requests that I make of God, but this is one time I prayed that He would let me have another opportunity to see and share a similar experience through the lens of my camera.

The next day, with my camera by the door our beachfront condo and card in slot, the same dolphin pod swam past. Over the next hour, they treated us to the occasional sights and sounds of surfacing (chuffing/exhaling), but also some spectacular jumps, including two breaching simultaneously in what looked like a choreographed SeaWorld show (see thumbnail below – 1:58 on video). Because of the uncertain and sporadic nature of the dolphins’ surfacing, I chose to take shoot video instead of photos. Below is a compilation of that adventure.

Click HERE for other interpretations of this week’s theme – adventure

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Dialogue

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This week’s challenge allows for different interpretations. This might be a “cause and effect” composition. For my interpretation of the story, display the caption by running the cursor over the photo.

August – “Better fatten up for Winter!”
December – “I wish I hadn’t eaten all the nuts!”

Click HERE for more examples of Frédéric Bever’s challenge:

 With an intuitive approach, I considered the photos’ subject matter and graphic attributes and chose those that resonated with each other, creating cross-dependencies and visual analogies. They’re combinations that tell a story. The resulting dialogue — they story they tell — is the creation of each viewer’s individual perception. It’s your turn now: for this week’s challenge, bring together two of your photos into dialogue. What do they say to each other?  – Frédéric Bever

In reality, the squirrel on the left (not sure it’s the same one on the right) is doing what God has programmed it to do. As I watched it this past Saturday, the squirrel went from one place to another in the yard, placing food away for winter. It, however, binged to prepare for winter. The squirrel on the right looks as though he was well prepared for winter, displaying a fat belly.

Nature has some things to teach us about being ready for times of leanness According to the Bible. Solomon observed:

Go to the ant, you sluggard;consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Proverbs 6:6-8 (NIV)

In practical terms, we must prepare materially for the “winter seasons” of life, that are in some ways as cyclical as the seasons. Whether it is in the order of shelter, provisions or finances, we should be ready for those occasional periods of hardship.

But there is the “winter season” of our lives, too, for which we should be spiritual prepared. I just received notice of the death of a friend in my last church. He was advanced in age and had declined physically and mentally. However, he was prepared for this season of life for spiritually, having stored up treasures in heaven that first came by placing his own life in a secure, eternal, loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ (John 14:1-6). Secondly, he had set his affections on those that God has His heart set on…the world. (Acts 1:8)…loving them as God had loved him.

Summer is fading…don’t be caught unprepared!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

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Sunsets at the beach are always a family viewing event. Last October, I caught this “last of the day” beach stroll of my sister and her husband, who celebrated fifty years of marriage that year. I love seeing them still go through life hand-in-hand,

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Silhouettes at Sunset

Click HERE for more examples of “silhouette.”

Weekly Photo Challenge: Containers – 2

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Dammed lakes are containers of water for multiple uses: drinking water, recreation, flood control. McKinley Lake in our town’s primary public park was originally dammed to supply water to the local rail industry in the late 1800’s*, covering over 40 acres. It now serves the sole purpose of public recreation.

McKinley Lake Spillway
Asclepian incarnata (Swamp Milkweed)
Lythrum salicaria
Grazing Canadian Geese

Help me out if you can identify the wild flowers that grow on the bank of the lake.

Here are a few more containers I saw on my morning walk.

Grain Elevator
Civic-Minded Concrete Truck: Easter Seals Iowa
Oldest of Creston’s Water Towers

HERE is a link to how others are interpreting the theme, “containers.”

*History from the McKinley Lake Restoration Project website

“The lake on the west edge of Creston was originally built in 1874 by the C.B. & Q Railroad. The lake was forty-five acres in size and was created by damming up a creek that drained thirty thousand acres of land. The entire land area including the lake was an 80 acre tract.  They built it with the purpose of creating a Holly System of Waterworks. A 7 inch water main brought water directly to the center of town from the Lake. It provided water to the Round Houses and Machine Shops as well as many downtown businesses. A communication system was developed so the yard manager could tell the waterworks supervisor when more water must be sent up. In the winter ice was cut from the lake for railroad use between Burlington and Council Bluffs. All the ice used in Creston was also cut from the lake.”

Weekly Photo Challenge: Containers

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I was mowing around a tree in early June when I noticed a plethora of insect skins around the tree’s base. The arrival of the 17-Year Cicada (Brood III) had been announced by the media, but I was not expecting it in my backyard.
IMGP9006As I looked up the trunk of the tree, the tiny, empty casings of the morphing nymphs covered the branches and leaves as the winged cicadas had shed their skins for their short adult life.
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Though I did not witness the cicadas’ emergence (nor manage to photograph a live one), each decaying skin had the same hatched opening like a two-sided convertible top being retracted for their release.

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There were often thread-like ribs that appeared to have been stretched from the exoskeleton as the cicadas came out.

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With so many cicadas winging their way into my neighborhood, I expected a cacophony of buzzing. Surprisingly, they must flown to other areas since I would only hear an occasional “love call” in the afternoons…not that I missed it.  The decibel levels (up to 120 dB) produced by a male are the loudest of all insects and have been known to create permanent hearing loss when  in direct proximity to the human ear.

The adult cicada’s short life-span now complete with mating and the laying of eggs in slits made by the female in deciduous tree leaves, the eggs hatch after 6-7 weeks. Then, the nymphs fall to the ground, burrowing two feet down to start the 17-year cycle all over again.

For more examples of this week’s photo challenge of “containers,” click HERE. Additionally, HERE is a link to the local newspaper’s reporting of this “buzz.”